Conventionally, pre-crash safety (PCS) has been realized, which reduces or prevents damage due to a collision of an own vehicle with an obstacle (a target) positioned ahead of the own vehicle and in the travelling direction thereof, such as another vehicle, a pedestrian, or a road structure. In the PCS, a time-to-collision (TTC) as a time until a collision between the own vehicle and the obstacle occurs is obtained based on a relative distance between the own vehicle and the obstacle and a relative speed or a relative acceleration between the own vehicle and the obstacle. Based on the time-to-collision, a warning device informs the driver of the own vehicle of the approach to the obstacle, or a braking device of the own vehicle is activated.
Regarding the PCS, there is a vehicle control apparatus described in Patent Literature 1. In the vehicle control apparatus described in Patent Literature 1, a blind region is defined ahead of a own vehicle and in the travelling direction thereof, and the control of decelerating the own vehicle is performed in the case where a target stays in the blind region for a predetermined time or longer.